I'm interested if anyone (everyone) would consider Vanguard Tax-Managed Small Cap Fund Admiral Shares VTMSX to be active. IMHO no more so than a small-cap value or growth fund. I’m not an expert but I believe the fund just uses the S&P600 and excludes some high-yield companies while staying broadly...

I'm interested if anyone (everyone) would consider Vanguard Tax-Managed Small Cap Fund Admiral Shares VTMSX to be active. IMHO no more so than a small-cap value or growth fund. I’m not an expert but I believe the fund just uses the S&P600 and excludes some high-yield companies while staying broadly...

Any active fund which is highly diversified, has an expense ratio at 0.30% or less and with a buy-and-hold approach that avoids capital gains distributions and ordinary dividends. The advantage of index funds is in those qualities. Aside from the psychological factor of avoiding benchmark tracking ...

But happy days were ahead. 50 and 60% drops in stock markets everywhere eliminated that pesky capital gains problem and allowed me to consolidate into total world both much sooner than I was expecting and without paying capital gains tax. Maybe you'll be just as lucky some day.-) Happy days? Capita...

There's never been an identified case of the IRS declaring a wash between different mutual funds for an individual taxpayer. One contributor here claimed that their company worked with IRS auditors about transactions that they did, and were told that there needs to be less than 80% overlap. I don't...

Every year about this time I write my "Portfolio Review" to file so I know what I was thinking about several years ago. I benchmark my equities to the Russell 3000 ^RUA and the fixed income to Bloomberg Barclays Intermediate US Govt/Credit TR Index Value Unhedged LF97TRUU:IND. My portfolio doesn't l...

Mutual Funds There’s some debate, but no direct authority , on the question of whether two mutual funds keying off the same index are substantially identical for purposes of the wash sale rule. Can you sell one S&P 500 index fund at a loss and buy a different S&P 500 fund the same day without havin...

I think a small allocation is probably wise, but not necessary. When I consider adding a small allocation of anything I always do a back of the envelope calculation of what that small portion would mean to my overall portfolio if that allocation out performed by a whopping 10%. I usually come up wi...

No. Bonds are for safety. Why would you want to take on currency risk in your safe assets? Or do you want to incur the added cost of currency hedging instead? Looks like the currency hedging is pretty cheap. Dale In our view, investors remain far too complacent about the role that currency risk pla...

As it turns out after spending quite some time on the phone with Vanguard as to why my Roth 1099-R was coded with a Code T instead of a Q ... I'm sorry Dave but what are you talking about? :D Do people actually get distributions from their ROTH's? I thought those accounts were for the grandkids. :b...

You're obviously missing the point here, Doc. Even the online December 2018 version that claims to be YTD (I downloaded it to see) doesn't include all transactions for that year -- it's the same as the paper version. It would be nice if it did. You're apparently aware of that fact, since you talked...

Should International Bonds be a component in our asset allocation after all? No. Bonds are for safety. Why would you want to take on currency risk in your safe assets? Or do you want to incur the added cost of currency hedging instead? The reason that International Bonds outperformed the US TBM rec...

The Vanguard Ultra Short Term Bond (VUBFX) seems like a great place to park short term funds. It has a SEC yield of 2.71% and a duration of only 0.9 years so the interest rate risk seems minimal. 1) Be careful with SEC 30 day yields that include December. Depending on whether a fund accrues dividen...

In responding to me The previous statements from Vanguard DID include ALL transactions, so there's no obvious reason that they can't continue to do so. They can do it but it would increase costs. Vanguard wants to get rid of paper altogether but there are people who are computer limited and Vanguard...

That's one possible explanation, Doc. However, IMO, they should punish traders who exceed a certain number and not punish all of the rest of us by taking away a valuable resource we previously had (one real YTD statement for each year). Nice idea but I don't think a broker is "allowed" to make that...

Doubtless it will take years to sort out in court. Saw a clip about PG&E on TV yesterday. California laws are different from what we usually think of. Liability accrues to a public utility without having to prove negligence. Even a long bankruptcy period will not likely effect bond holders which ar...

That's one possible explanation, Doc. However, IMO, they should punish traders who exceed a certain number and not punish all of the rest of us by taking away a valuable resource we previously had (one real YTD statement for each year). Nice idea but I don't think a broker is "allowed" to make that...

We really don't need ALL statement -- only one complete YTD statement for each year like we used to get. In another recent thread relating to Vangaurd stopping purchases of of some leveraged assets https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=269047&p=4318922#p4318922 there was a comment t...

Google Sheets works well for me and has for years. It imports fund prices and allows me to calculate percentages. No pie charts (that I know of), but I don't need them. Re-balancing makes me think a little and that's probably good. If Google didn't import prices then I'd be forced to use PW or M*, ...

I was hoping for something more official looking than a spreadsheet. I don't understand why there is a need for a permanent copy of a broker transaction report. Cost basis yes but individual dividends, transfers and interest payments not so much. If you ever need info on a past transaction for the ...

What were you trading? I asked a Schwab rep if there would be margin interest if I bought a Schwab mutual fund (not ETF) and sold the money fund the same day. He said no but I didn't ask 10 of them to get a consensus answer........and even then it might not be the correct answer. The issue involves...

What were you trading? I asked a Schwab rep if there would be margin interest if I bought a Schwab mutual fund (not ETF) and sold the money fund the same day. He said no but I didn't ask 10 of them to get a consensus answer........and even then it might not be the correct answer. The issue involves...

Other retail brokerages like Charles Schwab Corp. , TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. and Fidelity Investments still offer the products, though investors opting to buy them receive additional prompts to make them aware of risks. https://www.wsj.com/articles/vanguard-wont-let-investors-trade-these-popular...

This part isn't right; irrespective of getting settled funds from sale on account on settlement day for the buy, it would represent a free ride because over the first night both the purchased T+2_settlement holding and the T+1_settlement mutual fund holding would be "in the market"; that is, the tr...

I would assume the money market interest would be the same with or without margin? Or did you intend to imply that in a margin account, the money would collect interest on that day? I don't know. I think at Vanguard if you sell a T1 and buy a T2 on the same day the money for the sale does not sweep...

But if both orders were submitted timely and executed on the same day I don't see why tmcc was charged a night's margin interest; Schwab should be called on that. If I place a transfer out and sell SWVXX the same day I get charged margin interest. IIRC if you buy SWVXX and sell an ETF the same day ...

Now, under the new system, you have to keep the entire year's worth of statements if you want a true YTD of all transactions. No you don't. You can get all the transactions downloaded in several formats and print it if you want. But those formats do not include the "year to date statement". I just ...

Fortunately, you can still request a trade, put in the sell amount later in the day. And as long as the cash is in the account on "settlement" day, it all works fine. Sell later in the day is fine but I got gigged for the same settlement day recently in the cash account. Schwab interprets the trade...

Now only if Vanguard would update the account statements to provide a year to date statement listing all transactions for the year. One could then print the year end final statement and have a full accounting for the year. I know Mel had mentioned that he mentioned this to Vanguard. I really do not...

Schwab moved the sweep accounts in both of our accounts to Schwab Bank sometime last year.. I'm now using Schwab Value Advantage MM (SWVXX) which is a purchase MM account not a sweep account so it takes an extra day to "settle" sometimes. That's not an issue in our taxable account because it is a ma...

There is no question that is not a wash sale. You have an actively managed fund and an index. Having the same general investment objective is a far cry from being substantially identical. The wash sale rule applies to things that are the same thing in everything but name, not things that are merely...

There have been a number of comments about whether a broker can ban some mutual funds. But my question was whether they could ban ETF's listed on an exchange like NASDAQ. The idea of discriminating by setting a different fee structure is different from a Vanguard actually banning a listed Schwab ETF...

If a true year-to-date statement is not possible, then how can I get a December only statement, that follows the same logic that is used for statements January - November? From the December statement "Some or all of this information may be reported to the IRS on Form 1099-B Proceeds from Broker and...

In the very long run equities will out outperform fixed income because they are more risky. Duh! Stop trying to use limited term return or even risk adjusted return to try to make some point. If you never rebalance you would wind up with a very high AA in the long term. Is this what you want? A ver...

To the extent that rebalancing makes any difference at all, yearly rebalancing seems harmful, while a very wide rebalancing "band" of 10-15% seems to often increase returns slightly and decrease volatility slightly. In the very long run equities will out outperform fixed income because they are mor...

Rebalancing is to control risk not maximize return. As a general principle higher risk assets should produce higher return. If they didn't we wouldn't invest in them. No stocks, only T-Bills. Attempting to choose a rebalancing strategy by looking at returns is counter productive. Just pick a strated...

Would Vanguard allow you to swap fund shares from your IRA with an equivalent amount cash from her IRA? I doubt that is something they do, but maybe it is. If not, then why is it a problem for you to do what you did? Depending on the details. I can make the swap from joint to my ROTH. But that is n...

The guess I mentioned earlier is that Schwab doesn't want to deal with the apparently high quotes for the two earliest maturities. Eh... It seems to me that they would need a better reason than "doesn't want to deal with ..." The SEC has guidelines. Of course I have no idea what the guidelines are.

Most of our ready cash is sitting at Schwab which is not showing a market for the April note and I don't feel like moving it for a very short term investment so I think I'm going to pass. Yes, I verified with a CUSIP search that Schwab does not offer this one (not that that's surprising, since it d...

I am mostly seeing these short-termers as more hassle to evaluate than they are worth. A 3.5% APY for a $10k investment is just about two Starbucks per week. :D But if there is runaway inflation in the next couple months... :moneybag :wink: I am not worried about Starbucks raising their price of a ...